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Pamela Warhurst has stepped down from the Forestry Commissionwww.forestry.gov.uk

Oliver Moody

Last updated at 12:01AM, January 22 2013

The top official at the Forestry
Commission has left her job after ministers demanded new leadership to
handle the ash dieback crisis.

The shuffle comes as a cache of documents seen by The Times reveals the
Government’s chaotic approach to fighting the deadliest tree infection to
hit Britain since Dutch elm disease.

Pamela Warhurst, the chairwoman of the Forestry Commission, “stepped down” at
the end of last month, but an internal Civil Service circular indicates that
she was nudged aside by politicians keen to change the way the body is run.
“Ministers have decided that this is the right time